Business: Managerial Communications - Essay Example

Under the experiment: A bonus was introduced which depended on the turnover figures each quarter for each sales person: 100% over salary for the top sales person; 60% for the second best; 30% for numbers three and four; and no bonus for the remainder. The basic salary of all sales people of mid-size computers was decreased by 10 Issues with the current system: However the experiment has received a lot of flak from world over. It has not been able to deliver the results it should have. In addition, some of the best sales people of the company have left the company for better paying competitors.

In Sweden the system failed because it was based on 30% remuneration on performance. Different people in different times of the year live under different circumstances, and there are different things happening in their lives-all of which have a direct on the sales performance. HR managers in Sweden feel that this system of particularism is anything but fair. The rewards that are not given to people hurt them more and impact them negatively than the motivation driven from rewards bestowed. Another issue with such a system is that in some cultures sub-ordinates find themselves un-easy with the idea of taking away benefits from their peers.

The representative from Italy pointed out how drastically the system failed in Italy. It did will in the first three months before the sales started dipping. The salesperson that had gotten the bonus in a previous period felt guilty and would try not to work as hard in the next head quarters to give others a chance to earn bonus. Thus the concept of communitarism that prevails in Italy prevailed over Individualism. Even in countries like Indonesia, this system has received a lot of flak. It has not worked there.

It has led to customers being overloaded with products they don’t really need. Secondly, economic circumstances have a huge role to play in the way buyers react. Overloading with products will not change the good and bad times and hence the trends. (Schien, 1990) So on the whole this system has been widely resisted wherever it has been tried. Results from southern Europe, Middle East and Asia indicate that it has failed so far. Following this, the attention is now turned to the reinforcement theory of motivation.

This theory was chalked out by B.F.Skinner and his accomplices. The foundation of this theory is the “law effect”. This means that an individual behavior have a tendency to be repeated if the consequences and the rewards are positive and tends to declines if the consequence are negative. Some of the note-worthy elements of the reinforcement theory are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction. (Munter, 1993) Keeping these two considerably significant theories in mind, the employees at this particular organization are unable to execute well in the training program because they are provided with less rewards and less positive consequences.

Their performance in the training program is not co-related with the rewards that they would receive. Each employee is paid the same amount for attending the program, whether that employee is motivated or not, had passed the exam or not. Hence, employees are not at all passionate and energetic for performing well in the program. Recommendations: There are significant differences which are caused by cultural